“Camp.
Pick up, damn it.” Sean drummed his fingers on the leather-wrapped steering
wheel of his Porsche 911 Carrera as he sped up the Henry Hudson Parkway.
Moments earlier, he’d slipped past the southerly portion of the West Side
Highway seconds before it was closed to accommodate the swelling Independence
Day crowds gathering at river’s edge.
“Whoa, where’s the fire, bro?”
“Where are you, man?” He looked up at the fast- moving
storm clouds massing in the star-filled sky and debated whether to flip up the
top of the pricey convertible. But so far no raindrops spattered the
windshield, and he loved the way the sports car sliced through the brutal
night, tossing refreshing drafts of air back at him.
“Um, you called me,
Sean, remember? I’m on my cell. Talking to you.”
“Yeah, but where? Sleepy
Hollow?”
“Good guess.”
Sean
snorted. Since Campbell’s 1Night Stand date with the great love of his life, a
woman he hadn’t seen in ten years and thought he’d lost, he’d spent every spare
moment with her at the place they’d recaptured their bliss: the expansive
grounds of the old high school where they’d first met, and which By Jones was
demolishing to make way for a new, exclusive waterfront community.
“Actually,
we’re on the boat,” Campbell told him. “Taking a lazy cruise on the Hudson.
We’ll watch the fireworks downriver then come back. Thinking of spending the
night on the Lily Flower. It’s cooler on the water.”
“Keep
the radio on,” Sean warned, “and don’t go too far from shore. I’m just at the
New York City-Westchester line and there are clouds already. A thunderstorm’s
supposed to be rolling in.”
“Will do. So what’s up?”
Sean hesitated. “I’m taking a run up to Sleepy Hollow.
Veronica Hardwicke’s got some new bee in her bonnet.”
“Veronica Hardwicke? A bee, huh? In her bonnet?
I’d have said ‘itch.’ Much lower. One I think you’re hot to scratch.”
“The
woman is nutty as a bag of trail mix.” Sean glanced into his side view mirror
and executed a quick lane change, zipping around the slow-moving minivan in
front of him and pressing the pedal to the metal to return to the fast lane.
“I’m steering the hell clear of her.”
“Right.
That’s why you’ve dropped everything to race up to Sleepy Hollow on the Fourth
of July like your ass is on fire and she’s got the only hydrant in fifty
states. And Canada.” Campbell paused. “And Chile.”
“Chile?” Sean snapped.
“Thought I’d throw that one in to see if you
were paying attention.”
"Fuck you and Argentina, too." He waited for his brother to stop laughing.
